In what has been a year of surprises (not good ones), including a pandemic, the introduction of behaviour hubs and the bubonic plague, which we all thought was confined to the pages of history books, this week’s headlines about school starters struggling with language and communication are not exactly an eyebrow-raiser.
Not for those of us who are in the classrooms, who are down on the carpet, or who are manning the interactive board.
The Education Endowment Foundation research is validating what many of us have noticed already: many children have regressed, or have not developed central language, communication or basic skills to the extent that they might have done under different circumstances.
However, while lockdown may have been a contributing factor, this decline has been talked about in classrooms and across schools for almost a decade.
The impact of Covid on EYFS: Communication difficulties are not new
Over my career, I have had countless discussions about children who start school struggling with eye contact, awareness and concentration, making it hard for them to notice and create the initial sounds, let alone the jaw movements needed to make the first 44 sounds taught on starting school.
It is also not a problem confined to foundation stage, but can be a struggle more subtly throughout primary education.
For example, in key stage 2 in many schools, there has been a noticeable shift in children’s awareness of standard English, as opposed to the informal and colloquial language used at home. The natural distinction many children had between these two modes of communicating before the lockdowns has become blurred as a result of the extended time away from school.
But this is not a new problem. Repeated time out of school because of lockdown has simply exacerbated a problem that already had a creeping presence in our classrooms.
So, if this problem was already on the radar, why has it finally found the spotlight? Well, that’s a no-brainer, too. More children have been out of school - away from an environment where they are usually immersed in rich, language-building opportunities, and where they are actively taught to structure language for all different purposes. The pre-existing problem has received less support than usual because of the limitations of remote learning.
School starters this year have also missed out on the support and opportunities that are traditionally available for under-fives, provided by nurseries, childcare settings, Sure Start Centres and baby and toddler classes.
Preschool providers support children and parents by providing opportunities and guidance for learning and play, which, in turn, develop skills essential to language development, physical development and social development, all of which are essential for starting school.
With these providers closed or limited for some of the past year, it is not surprising that some children are less prepared for learning than in previous years.
Losing the narrative of ‘less able’
But, also, this most recent lockdown felt different for many of us, including parents. It would be fair to say that the mental health and wellbeing of many parents took a hit across the lockdowns.
Mental health studies have listed an increase in addictive coping behaviours in adults. Excessive use of technology for escape is a lesser-reported, but still prevalent - and damaging - coping behaviour, which has been widespread throughout the pandemic.
Technology use by adults has been slowly replacing communication such as eye contact and discussion in families for some time. Before phones, it was TV that caused this same issue.
It has been a creeping problem, and is the most likely culprit for the slow increase in speech and language difficulties in classrooms over the past 10 years. The lockdown periods have simply shone a light on a problem that we already knew was lurking.
So, with all this worry, why are so few schools using the government’s National Tutoring Programme, then? Simple: tutoring is not the solution for improving communication, language and literacy for children aged 4 to 11.
Those of us in the classroom, sitting in the carpet spaces, standing by interactive boards, sitting on tiny furniture or standing by the mud kitchens, know that what is learned through play is learned faster and more accurately than what is learned in teacher-centred or adult-led activities.
Quite simply, foundation-stage and primary-aged children, who need to develop social, emotional, language, communication or academic skills, do not need catch-up and tutoring - they need rich, well-considered opportunities to experiment and learn through play, supported by experts who have strong relationships with them (that’s us).
Even more, what these children need is to lose the narrative or being “less able”, “behind” or in need of “catching up”. For this to happen, the children need less judgement and comparison, and instead require maximum time to experiment, role play and rehearse the sounds, structures and behaviours they missed out on while learning remotely. The children need a model of abundance, not of deficit.
To many of us in the role of experts, setting up these opportunities to fit the much-needed model of abundance, there is still an unanswered question of how baseline testing, tuition and intervention will add this much-needed abundance. And there is a question about how we will meet the expectations from the top, while providing what our children actually need.
If anything, this spotlight on language and core skills development ought to result in some funding for the often-overlooked under-fives services and EYFS settings for the brilliant job they do in creating readiness for school.
Instead, we look to the horizon and wonder if this research is about to lead to another top-down intervention, like teaching in rows, behaviour hubs and national tutoring. If it does, I wonder just how many of us will find that a surprise - or something else we wish was confined to the history books.
Lizzy Price is a primary teacher in the East Midlands. She tweets as @thinker_teacher
